CHURCH ARCHITECTURE by Edward Wyatt

SPIRES AND BUTTRESSES

BROACH SPIRE

A broach spire (octagonal) rises straight from a square tower without a
parapet. The broach is the pyramidal masonry filling the four angles. The
triangular space at each angle is covered by masonry inclined from each right
angle on the base to a point along each diagonal side of the octagon. As a
result the square tower changes into an octagonal spire. They date mainly from
the 13th century but some persisted into the 14th century. Tall slender broach
spires are at Leckhampton and Shurdington.

PARAPET SPIRES

Broach spires were superseded by parapet spires, which rose from the tower
but from within the parapet. This made repairs much easier since a ladder could
be placed on top of the tower rather than on the ground. The junction of tower
and parapet was masked by ornamental carving and the parapet was decorated with
pinnacles. The most superb example is the early 16th century spire at Louth, in
Lincs, which is 294ft (98m) high. It is generally agreed that for an aesthetic
design both tower and spire should be the same height.

The spires have crockets along their ridge which act as steps for the
steeplejacks. Often they increase in size as they go up the spire. This also
lessens the distortion to the shape caused by long lines which seem hollow in
the middle. Ruardean church has double pinnacles. Parapet spires are more common
than the broach type. Perpendicular churches generally do not have a spire.

NEEDLE SPIRES

The genius of Sir Christopher Wren is shown in his towers and spires of the
51 churches he designed after the Great Fire. Spires were built from different
materials, some are covered with lead and are whitish in appearance. Needle
spires, delicately thin in their taper, are usually made of lead. This is a
feature of some modern churches. Stone spires have suffered from the wind.
Several spires have had their top blown off or had the spire lowered for safety.
The spire from St. John’s Northgate stands in the nearby Sophie Gardens and
those from Oxenton and Corse are in their churchyards. Mitcheldean spire fell in
1733 but was rebuilt in 1760 and the spire of Painswick church was hit by
lightning in 1883. Bell ringing caused the collapse of Dursley’s spire in
1798. It was not rebuilt.

On top of the tower or spire is usually a weather vane, often a cock for
vigilance. Sometimes it is the emblem of a saint, a key for St. Peter or a ship,
fish or dragon. The large cockerel at Winchcombe came from Bristol. It seems
appropriate to have a weather vane on top of the church since the British have
always been interested in the direction of the wind.

BUTTRESSES

Since the weight of a building tends to push the walls outwards they have to
be supported, or buttressed. With the coming of the Gothic style the size of
windows increased, the area of walling between them decreased and so buttresses
played an increasingly important structural role. Thus parallel with the
evolution of Gothic windows was a corresponding development in buttress design.
In the old Romanesque style buttresses had been little more than wide flat
strips of stone, serving no real structural purpose. Throughout the Gothic era
buttresses decreased in width but increased in projection, being greatest at the
base and reducing in three or four stages. Each step was capped with a sloping
set-off to shed rain water. In the 13th century, in Early English style,
buttresses did not always reach the full height of the church. During the 14th
century they were weighted at the top by a pinnacle, whose weight acting
downwards helped to sustain the outward thrust. Beneath the pinnacle the last
stage of the buttress in a prestigious church might be hollowed out to form a
niche which held a statue.

Flying buttresses came into use about 14th century. Often they carried the
thrust of a clerestory wall over the roof of an aisle to a main buttress. There
are some excellent examples at Gloucester cathedral.

BUTTRESSES AT THE CORNERS OF A TOWER

In the 13th century there were two buttresses at each corner set at
right-angles to each other. At the turn of the 14th century this form was
abandoned and replaced by a single buttress set at a diagonal to the corner, the
French buttress. At the end of the Gothic era there was a return to paired
corner buttresses, but unlike the 13th century the corner of the building was
allowed to project between the two buttresses because they were set-back,
providing a more interesting composition. Enclosing both angled or set-back
buttresses would give the clasping buttress. The vertical stages of buttresses
coincided with the string courses which run along the side of a church.